


Void & Dreams

by intothemidnightblue



Series: Ficlets [7]
Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Extinction, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mild Blood, They die but like, and dream deaths, hence the dreamstuff, repatriation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23426617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothemidnightblue/pseuds/intothemidnightblue
Summary: His dreams never let him forget.
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan
Series: Ficlets [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/792744
Kudos: 20





	Void & Dreams

Higgs turned his face to the sky, timefall brushing his cheeks.

To him, it was nothing but rain now.

In the early morning, he went over his dreams.

Amelie no longer haunted them, thank the gods for that small freedom. With it, though, he expected his DOOMs to retreat, though the exact opposite seemed to occur; and as it did, he began to dream anew.

His dreams were now haunted by his own face; closing his eyes, finger to his lips, as the world voided. All that was left was retreating tar, falling apart to two men, lying in the dirt naked as the day they were born.

Sam would reach out and connect them, hands twisting together. It would take them a moment to stand, dust settling, tar pools evaporating to nothing at last. It would rain one last time, and they would age, falling to dust together, through body and bones they would decay and return to the earth.

Higgs would wake with an acrid taste in his mouth, and the pressure of an invisible kiss on his lips, and he would realize once again that his heart flutters alive at the thought of Sam.

Outside in the rain, Higgs called the tar. A small pool formed, as he bridged tendrils upward, crystallizing it to chiral gold in an abstract form. His control was impeccable, the only thing he knew to stave off apocalypse; keep sharp, alert, and _in control_. He began to feel as Amelie might have. His forever, now marching towards the end of all things until the final death.

Will the land be at peace when he starts the final death? Will the Beach usher the beloved beyond, or will they all fade to black, not even ash? Higg’s sculpture took on a catlike form as he weaved in tendrils, snaking then around like organs and sinew, held up by bone and small strands of muscle weaving together. The mane, he motioned with an outstretched hand, fist to palm outstretched as tendrils fell open like petals on a flower, one after another.

He pet the new being, crouching down to kiss its snout, breath sparking new breath, he creates life.

And in an instant, he crushes it. Tears or allergy it is uncertain, hidden beneath the kohl.

He bends this new nature to his will, like flexing a muscle. Control.

A new dream would peek through occasionally. So often featuring Sam, lifelike. Higgs would wonder if they share nights together in the safety of the mind until Higgs' demons catch up and they are torn from one another. They run, occasionally. Lungs cold and burning with effort as they ripped their feet through the tar. Higgs learned to solidify tar in these dreams, guiding them up his own Tower of Babel, running for their lives it would seem. At the top, they would waste no time. Flying came second nature, and for these brief moments, they could be assured in their freedom. Often, they landed in a grassy landscape, mountains an unclear distance away framing their valley. It would be too bright, and Higgs would mistake it for death for just a moment. Sam would laugh, pulling him close and they would stay there, foreheads touching, Higgs hands on Sam’s chest, Sam’s hands holding his waist. They could touch here, and relished in healing their starved souls. These were good dreams, where they got away from it all.

If they walked further, they would remember homes and buildings until they reached an old city. Skyscrapers obscured the blinding sunlight as they faced the dark again. They once climbed a skyscraper, taking the stairs double at a time in a race to reach the summit. The bar of the penthouse lounge would be stocked, and they would sip something as the floor to ceiling windows displayed a sunrise that never made sense. It trapped them in dawns glow for as long as they stayed asleep, but it was beautiful.

Other nights they would walk to the river in the valley. It was a wide but gentle river. Wading into it felt like wading into cool air. Higgs could dunk himself in its cold touch, emerging to shake as if he was a wet dog. Sam could splash him, and Higgs would gather the water through the pull of his arms and soak Sam using his full wingspan. If slowly, articles of clothing drifted downstream, it would be a very good dream indeed.

Higgs would wake, content. These were the good days. He would build his beings, breathing life into them and casting them out towards freedom. Inwardly, he would wonder what freedom tasted like. Still, Higgs was trapped in the nightmares of extinction, in the throes of becoming god he realized too late what it meant to be human.

Isolated, he kept to himself more often than not, occasionally opening his doors to strangers passing through. His shelter was quite out of the way, he liked it that way, alone where he couldn’t cause trouble and away from those he had hurt before. He felt their pain and cringed. His penance was his isolation. His dreams becoming punishment for believing he could escape retribution. He pushed for too much and now all he has are the consequences of his sheltered self-centered existence.

He often blamed himself for the parts that were not his fault. When Amelie twisted him there wasn’t much left of his self-control. She has broken his mind the rest of the way, but he has gone too far on his own as it stood. He repented, renouncing his past with every breath he still breathed.

His dreams never let him forget, though. He was haunted by his past. On the off chance he would dream as normal people do, it was often of all his wrongs, twisting and distorting and drowning him. He has been voided to nothing, stabbed and shot and beaten and bloody from a number of factors as he would once do to others. He should die, he thought, but death never stuck. He tried waiting it out, swimming away, yet there was no escape when soft hands on a woman in a red dress snatched him back to life.

Time had passed slowly, he was greying, becoming the man of his nightmares. Sam has found him after Lou had grown, and they settled like they loved one another. Higgs had been losing feeling in his nerves down to his soul, the only fire keeping him warm being the furnace burning in Sam’s chest. Perhaps they were indeed in love. Twin souls with the same curse. Sam was drawn to extinction like a moth to a flame, though everything about him screamed for life. They would die together, old gods in an empty world, and now, Higgs could accept that. Sam, too, had grown tired in his age. He had once been full of ideas and plans to stop the approaching tide, but it had become clear that the inevitable must occur. To have gone against Amelie only drew in more power, gaining more time for the seed of destruction to grow to a towering redwood. He visited it occasionally, bathing in the blood pooled at its roots as he waded in to touch the raw force of nature. There was no stopping the end, they never had a chance to begin with.

He awoke crying blood.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos keep the fics comin'  
> I wrote this in a daze, couldn't sleep. I keep waking up around 2am and 2am just kind of feels a certain way you know?
> 
> wrote this real fast with no beta so yeah it be like this.


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